Christmas Haul 2013

And so this is Christmas.
And what have you done?

Well, I have been unwrapping books and I like that. I love receiving books as gifts – especially when it’s books I have been wishing for for a long time. So here’s my Christmas Haul!

 

• Octavia Butler: Kindred. A sci-fi novel dealing with slavery. How could I resist that? Besides, everyone who has read this one, has been raving about it and it sounds really intriguing. A modern black woman is taken from her time and transported back to the South because of a drowning white boy. She’s apparently his nanny – and a slave! I’m so looking forward to reading about how a modern black woman deals with living in this time.
• Khaled Hosseini: And the Mountains Echoed. I have only read The Kite Runner but it was so good and I have been regretting that I haven’t bought A Thousand Splendid Suns yet. I was hoping that it would become available together with Hosseini’s new book, but so far, no such luck. Still, I have the new one and it’s supposed to be wonderful as well so I will probably love it!
• Edith Wharton: The Age of Innocence. This year’s Christmas Classic (the classic, my boyfriend gifts me for Christmas) is Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. I am so looking forward to reading it and I hope I like it because I have received  the Norton Critical Edition so essays about the book takes up more pages than the actual novel itself in this edition! This will be my first Edith Wharton novel and I have so high hopes for both this novel as well as her other novels.

 

• Stephen King: Doctor Sleep. I have been eagerly awaiting this novel. I love The Shining, both the book and the movie, and when I heard that King was writing a sequel, I of course needed to get it. And here it is, looking all pretty with a cat on it’s cover?! My boyfriend also wanted to get me The Shining but apparently it’s sold out and we have to wait for a new edition. I really want to read them back to back so I think I’m going to wait with this one until I get The Shining.
• Donna Tartt: The Goldfinch. Donna Tartt is a wonderful author and I have loved both The Secret History and The Little Friend. I have been waiting for this one for a couple of years and it’s finally here and looking big and amazing and I hope to get around to this one really soon.
• Ib Michael: Himlen brændte. (The sky burned) Years ago, I attended a lecture about one of the biggest natural disasters in the history of the earth. On June 30th, 1908, there was an explosion in Tunguska in Siberia and it completely destroyed a huge area of the tundra. And the explosion is still a mystery. I have fascinated by this ever since and when I saw a novel about this event, I had to have it.

And finally, the debut novel of Selma Lagerlöf: Gösta Berlings Saga. I got a pretty old edition of this book, first published in 1891. I have never read Selma Lagerlöf and only know her as the author of Niels Holgersens underbare res a venom Sverige (The Wonderful Adventures of Niels). I don’t know what this one is about but I’m looking forward to getting to know more of Lagerlöf’s writing.

So this was my haul this year. Some amazing books and I’m really looking forward to reading them! How was your Christmas? Did you receive any books or other great gifts? I also got some cool plates and a backpack and the kids had a wonderful time (although we now have two Furbys in the house…!) so this was a great Christmas!